ld lead him to talk. What he hoped to do was to
make him forget himself and begin to talk to him as he had talked to
Betty, to ingenuously reveal impressions and points of view. Young men
of his clean, rudimentary type were very definite about the things they
liked and disliked, and could be trusted to reveal admiration, or lack
of it, without absolute intention or actual statement. Being elemental
and undismayed, they saw things cleared of the mists of social prejudice
and modification. Yes, he felt he should be glad to hear of Lord Mount
Dunstan and the Mount Dunstan estate from G. Selden in a happy moment of
unawareness.

Why was it that it happened to be Mount Dunstan he was desirous to hear
of? Well, the absolute reason for that he could not have explained,
either. He had asked himself questions on the subject more than once.
There was no well-founded reason, perhaps. If Betty's letters had spoken
of Mount Dunstan and his home, they had also described Lord Westholt
and Dunholm Castle. Of these two men she had certainly spoken more fully
than of others. Of Mount Dunstan she had had more to relate through the
incident of G. Selden. He smiled as he realised the importance of the
figure of G. Selden. It was Selden and his broken leg the two men had
ridden over from Mount Dunstan to visit. But for Selden, Betty might not
have met Mount Dunstan again. He was reason enough for all she had said.
And yet----! Perhaps, between Betty and himself there existed the thing
which impresses and communicates without words. Perhaps, because
their affection was unusual, they realised each other's emotions. The
half-defined anxiety he felt now was not a new thing, but he confessed
to himself that it had been spurred a little by the letter the last
steamer had brought him. It was NOT Lord Westholt, it definitely
appeared. He had asked her to be his wife, and she had declined his
proposal.

"I could not have LIKED a man any more without being in love with him,"
she wrote. "I LIKE him more than I can say--so much, indeed, that I
feel a little depressed by my certainty that I do not love him."

If she had loved him, the whole matter would have been simplified. If
the other man had drawn her, the thing would not be simple. Her father
foresaw all the complications--and he did not want complications for
Betty. Yet emotions were perverse and irresistible things, and the
stronger the creature swayed by them, the more enormous their power.
Bu